| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;
O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,
Conceit in weakest bodies, strongest workes.
Speake to her Hamlet
Ham. How is it with you Lady?
Qu. Alas, how is't with you?
That you bend your eye on vacancie,
And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.
Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe,
And as the sleeping Soldiours in th' Alarme,
Hamlet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: nephew's ruin. Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his
means on a certain Madame Firmiani, was now reduced to teaching
mathematics for a living, while awaiting his uncle's death, not daring
to let him know of his dissipations. This distant cousin, a sort of
Charles Moor, was not ashamed to give this fatal news to the old
gentleman as he sat by his fire, digesting a profuse provincial
dinner.
[*] The "Bande Noire" was a mysterious association of speculators,
whose object was to buy in landed estates, cut them up, and sell
them off in small parcels to the peasantry, or others.
But heirs cannot always rid themselves of uncles as easily as they
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: "No quarrelling here. Now, Henri Marais, your conduct about these two
young people who love each other is a scandal. Will you let them be
married to-morrow or not?"
"No, commandant, I will not. By the law I have power over my daughter
till she is of age, and I refuse to allow her to marry a cursed
Englishman. Moreover, the Predicant Celliers is away, so there is none
to marry them."
"You speak strange words, Mynheer Marais," said Retief quietly,
"especially when I remember all that this 'cursed Englishman' has done
for you and yours, for I have heard every bit of that story, though not
from him. Now hearken. You have appealed to the law, and, as
Marie |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: and the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I made
a dash at the wheel. The fool-nigger had dropped everything,
to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He stood
before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back,
while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat.
There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snag
was somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke,
there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bank--
right into the bank, where I knew the water was deep.
"We tore slowly along the overhanging bushes in a whirl of broken
twigs and flying leaves. The fusillade below stopped short,
Heart of Darkness |
